


i never liked that ending either

by Macremae



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Dimension Travel, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiverse, Not Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) Compliant, Original Character(s), Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) Fix-It, Precursors, The Drift (Pacific Rim)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26000227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macremae/pseuds/Macremae
Summary: You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?- Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed OutOnce upon a time Dr. Flick Tucker, K-Sci head of Biology, fought a bunch of highly scientific dragons to save the world. Then, they took over her life. It didn’t end well.Once upon our time Dr. Newt Geiszler, marine biologist, sci-fi aficionado, and accidental discoverer of dimensional travel, got a chance to take her place. He has a couple of ideas.In which Uprising is still a bad movie, musings on the nature of choice and personal autonomy are made, and somewhere, probably, a coin is showing heads every time.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Comments: 9
Kudos: 33





	1. Heads

**Author's Note:**

> yes everybody has a better idea for uprising. yes we all would go fucking insane if we had to take newt's place. this is me thinking very deeply about that! think with me @bae-science on tumblr and @shakesexual on twt

_“Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”  
\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

Newton Geiszler does not have six PhDs, nor does he get to study aliens for a living, despite how much he wishes first contactors would get their asses in gear already, but he is in fact a scientist, and a good one at that, so he’s acutely aware of the theory of alternate universes, the butterfly effect, and the inscrutable nature of time. It makes for good chitchat on first dates. Not that he’s, y’know, having many of those lately.

He likes the idea of saving the world, though, at least in the way that he’s trying to. Boston is a hotspot for two things: shitty drivers, and shitty environmental practices by even shittier companies, so when the toiling of academia grew too boring, the jump from grading lab reports to tagging whales was a welcome one. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for perfecting his Tinder profile, or making friends that aren’t his coworkers, but Newt’s never been the most fantastic at social skills anyway, and jellyfish don’t care what goes on in your brain. They don’t have one!

His work schedule (late nights, any ride on a fishing rig he can catch, maybe sometimes sleeping on a cot he keeps hidden in the supply closet) doesn’t leave time for a lot of things, actually, but that doesn’t mean Newt never takes breaks. Or at least, short ones. He likes looking around the city for coffee shops he hasn’t tried yet. He has a metal detector he brings down to the beach sometimes, although he usually ends up poking around the tide pools and coves for critters. He really, really likes, as cliche as it is, sci-fi. Monster movies especially. And there’s one that, were it acceptable first date conversation, Newt would go on more of them just to get a chance to talk about it with a real person.

 _Pacific Rim_ , released when Newt was twenty three and slogging through grad school and possibly slowly dying of scurvy, is without question an incredible love letter to the Kaiju genre, and right up Newt’s alley considering that was all he watched as a kid, and if he were the kind of person to work out, the theme song would definitely be on his playlist. He knows pretty much the entire script by heart and even carved out some time for the convention that happened a while back, which made him procrastinate half of his dissertation defense so completely he had to skip the Sunday night party and throw it together in his hotel room, but it was absolutely worth the sleep deprivation. 

He doesn’t have a huge amount of time for online stuff dedicated solely to it, besides reading the occasional fanfiction while waiting for samples to decant, or smugly watching yet another YouTube video essay on why the second movie in 2018, _Uprising_ , was absolute fridging dogshit when he needs to feel like his opinions matter, but he’s also a bisexual with eyes and fully understands that pretty much everyone in the cast is an absolute snack, including the male scientist that possibly, maybe, led him down a self-insert fic rabbit hole once. Or twice. At least he doesn’t have any of them bookmarked.

The point is that maybe, considering the circumstances, Newt can be a little bit forgiven for his initial reaction to things.

He’s down on the beach near his apartment, walking around the tide pools and trying to mindfully focus on the audiobook playing in his headphones, but quickly realizing maybe being “in touch with his surroundings” just isn’t something that’s going to happen. The sky is cool; overcast but not suggesting a storm will be here anytime soon, and Newt digs his toes in and out of the sand to feel the gritty, damp sensation on his skin. He shades his eyes with a hand and looks out over the ocean. The vast, blue strip is dotted with whitecaps, and a fishing boat far out in the distance bobs on the water. 

Out of the corner of his eye, by a section where the pools deepen enough to not be entirely transparent, he spots something flash. Newt blinks. No, not flash. Glimmer. There’s something in the water, a different shade of blue and bright enough to stand out even in the dimmer, washed-out light of late afternoon. He frowns.

“Oh, that better not be the fuckin’ EPA violation I think it is,” he mutters. There have been dumpings in this area before; companies thinking because it’s so out of the way, they can cover their tracks and the tides will do the rest. Newt’s purposefully botched jury duty interviews just to take down a few of them. 

He yanks his headphones out and shoves them into his pocket, walking quickly over to where the light seemed to be coming from. There’s no obvious smell; not oil, then, but plastic is easier to remove anyway. He scans the pools for anything obvious, pausing when another glimmer catches his eye. Squinting closer, he feels his breath catch.

Running down the length of a particularly large pool is a wide, jagged crack just long enough to fit a small horse. It isn’t clear how deep it goes, but the water around it seems to shine even with the sun behind clouds, flashing a bright, tropical blue that looks wholly out of place. Newt runs his hand through it, feeling for any residue, but it comes away clean and wet. He frowns deeper. “What the…”

He squats down in the shallowest part to get a better look, leaning in and trying to gauge the depth. It’s… weirdly big. Like, should not be supported by the earth around it, big. Did some kind of animal dig this? Is it a nest? He moves closer, nose almost touching the surface, and sticks his hand in again, running it over the surrounding sand and to the lip of the crack. It can’t be as deep as it looks; maybe there’s some kind of substance lining the walls?

Newt shoves his hand inside, expecting it to stop a few inches down, but feels his stomach swoop when he vastly undershoots the depth and reaches in up to his elbow, inertia pulling him forward. Gravity does the rest, sand sliding out from under his feet as he stumbles forward and into the water, no ground coming up to meet him. The breath lurches from his lungs; he feels them fill with water, darkness closing in over his head, and then something bright bursting just outside his eyelids as it smacks into his forehead.

He scrambles to find which way is up, clawing at the improbably deep water around him, heart thrashing in his chest with panic, until his fingers find purchase on what must be the ledge and he pulls himself up to the surface with a splash.

Air floods into his lungs as Newt half coughs, half vomits up the water he’d swallowed, floundering around for a moment before finding the strength to pull himself back up into the tide pool. He stays on his hands and knees for a moment, breathing hard. Seawater drips down into his eyes, and the ringing in his ears is only dulled somewhat by the water clogging them. He shakes his head and pinches his nose, breathing out hard so air comes out of his ears. The inside of his nasal cavity burns with the water he’d sucked up, and his entire chest feels ragged and spent.

After a few minutes, and a decisive verdict he’s not going to pass out immediately, Newt shakily gets to his feet and groans internally. It’s gonna be a long, _long_ walk home. 

He makes his way back up the beach, only pausing when he passes a tide marker he _swears_ wasn’t there when he first walked by. The sand almost feels different; rougher and thicker with pebbles and shells. When he reaches the place he knows he left his boots, it takes a whole minute of growing confusion before he realizes they’re gone. Newt swears aloud. Someone must have stolen them while he was half-drowning in a freaky tide pool.

Resigning himself to more odd looks from his neighbors than usual, he glances around for the path back up to the sidewalk before spotting a set of concrete stairs. Weird. When did those get built? They’re certainly not a bad idea, but he thinks he would notice an addition to a place he comes to so often.

Still, he’s wet and chilly and thirsty from gargling saltwater in his trachea, so Newt shrugs and takes the stairs. When he gets to the top of the sand lip, he glances around for where his truck is parked.

It’s gone, too.

“Are you fucking _kidding me_?” he shrieks, wholly failing to fathom how bad this day is actually getting. Did he leave his keys in his shoes? Again? Unable to contain his frustration, Newt kicks at the sand and shouts when some of it flies up into his eyes. He feels them fill with tears and quickly starts blinking, looking upwards to resist the urge to rub at them with his hand.

It’s then that he notices the tower.

Or, well, not exactly a tower. It’s big, though. A massive, slate-grey building sprawling out across the shoreline, with a concrete landing pad jutting out over the sea, and a dome-shaped roof with a series of smaller domes scattered around like numbers on a clock face. There’s people milling around on the pad, several of them unloading what look like crates from a helicopter perched on one of the landing areas. A long, wicked-looking wire fence surrounds the part of the property facing the land, with a single gate watched by guards on either side. Newt feels any breath he gained back rush out of his body.

“What the _fuck_ ,” he wheezes. This was definitely _not_ here when he came down.

Unable to think of anything else to do, he starts walking towards it. There are trucks parked near the fence with people unloading things into a smaller, garage-like loading dock, but no one seems to pay him any mind. A woman in a grey jumpsuit smoking a cigarette by the entrance gives him a brief glance, smirking when she sees his bare feet. Newt hunches his shoulders in a little further and picks up the pace. 

He reaches the main gate, a checkpoint and a boom barrier blocking the way, and takes a moment to psych himself up (as much as one can while soaking wet, now freezing, and utterly confused) before approaching the left guard. She’s a tall, dark-skinned woman with a thick braid of dreadlocks and a dismayed expression the moment she spots him. Newt’s never seen her before in his life. He clears his throat awkwardly.

“Uh, hiー sorry if this sounds weird, butー”

“Dr. Geiszler,” she interrupts, holding up a hand, “you know the rules, and they haven’t changed. No external samples on Shatterdome grounds. We’ve been over this.”

Anything Newt was going to continue with flies out of his head the moment he hears the word “Shatterdome”. Um. _What_?

He opens his mouth to respond, but the woman just sighs. “No, airtight containers are not the exception.”

Newt looks, really looks, around him, and starts to notice details that send something twisty and uncertain swirling in his gut. The woman in the jumpsuit has an ID card clipped to her belt loop that, from his distance, he can just make out as reading “Jaeger Technician”. The checkpoint booth has an insignia painted on that looks eerily similar to the logo for the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps. It’s on the guard’s breast as well. With a cold, sinking feeling, Newt reaches into his pocket and pulls out not a pair of headphones and his cell, but another ID card. His face is on it, grinning smugly. “Dr. Newton Geiszler”, it says. “K-Science, Biology Division”. 

All the blood drains from his face in an instant. What the _fuck_.

“Okay,” Newt says, hearing how high-pitched his voice has gone but unable to care, “can I ask a really weird, possibly crazy question?”

“You always do,” the guard says flatly. Newt nods.

“Right, great. Uh. What year is it?”

The guard raises her eyebrow at this, then takes in the seawater still dripping down Newt’s nose and making his cheap white button down cling to his chest, and sighs like this might as well happen. “April 2021, Dr. Geiszler.”

Newt almost feels faint. His head is actually spinning. “Cool,” he manages, “cool. One more question for you: what country are we in?”

She seems to accept that Newt is a mild lunatic and answers flatly, “China. Hong Kong, specifically, if you want to be locally correct about it.”

All Newt can do is blink rapidly, not moving. The concrete sidewalk is rough and dampening by the second beneath his feet, and he realizes he definitely looks crazy like this, wet and panicked and asking questions like what year it is, so he taps into his long-honed skill of bullshitting his way through hyperventilation and nods again, letting out a cracked laugh and trying to seem relieved for all the right reasons.

“Alright, cool, thanks! I, uh, hit my head down there by the, uh, tide pools, and wanted to make sure I didn’t have a concussion or anything.” He points to the beach with one thumb and grins. It’s definitely much too wide to be comforting. The guard nods, already bored with this conversation. Not knowing what else to do, Newt tentatively asks, “So canー can I go in?”

“We’ve had worse stuff on the floors,” she shrugs, and motions to the person in the guard booth to open the gate. Newt nods jerkily and walks briskly past, scanning the blank outer wall until he sees a door marked “Sea Level Stairwell Entrance” and, after a few tries, swipes his keycard to get through. 

There’s a long, winding rectangular spiral of stairs leading down, and Newt descends them in a daze, trying not to slip on the metal. He opens the door at the bottom into a corridor and barely holds back a gasp.

It’s the Shatterdome. There’s no other way around it; this is unmistakably the design of one of the dozens of hallways shown in the Hong Kong Shatterdome in _Pacific Rim_. The dingy lighting, not quite yet at the flickering, last-legs point it will be in four years, but on a clear path to it. The dark grey walls, pipes running alongside them. Even the smell is what he imagined; musty and wet, tinged with grease and cafeteria lunch meat. 

He starts in one direction, craning his neck to take everything in at once. This can’t be happening. Literally, it is impossible to be happening, and Newt doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he can’t think of any explanation as to why the set of his favorite movie has suddenly sprung up around him, and everyone seems to think he’s in on the joke.

Is he being pranked? No, he doesn’t have close enough friends for someone to do that for him. Did he accidentally stumble onto the filming set of the next movie, and get assumed to be an extra? Definitely not; he would have seen an announcement and lost his mind over it. Maybe this is all some ridiculous, startlingly real dream?

“I do hope you’re not even _considering_ entering our lab like that.”

Newt’s head snaps down to find the source of who just spoke to him, a feeling already creeping in that he knows the answer. He still feels his mouth fall open anyway, definitely looking like an idiot, which to the person in front of him, is nothing but free ammunition.

Dr. Hermann Gottlieb is, objectively, an asshole. He’s fussy, emotionally constipated, overly logical, snappish, prudish, highly defensive about possibly everything he holds an opinion on, and perpetually pressing the killjoy button on everything his lab partner in the movie, Dr. Flick Tucker, says/does/visibly thinks about. 

He’s also the unfortunate amalgamation of all of Newt’s types into one bossy, Victorian-ly handsome, extremely gay-coded genius. Hence the self-insert dive. Newt’s mouth goes bone-dry.

“Uh,” he says, suddenly remembering he doesn’t have shoes on, nor any chops at flirting whatsoever. “You’re Hermann Gottlieb.”

Hermann gives him a long, blank stare. His tight, already pinched frown deepens further. “Isー Dr. Geiszler, is this some sort of a prank?”

The undercut really is even worse in person. Newt feels his face heat up in record time. “I meanー um. No it’s not aー I mean, I think it isn’tー” he stops himself, finally absorbing fully Hermann’s first words to him. “Wait. Wait, you said ‘our lab’.”

Hermann clearly cannot decide whether Newt is fucking with him or not, and tilts his head away slightly. “Yes? I did. It is an unfortunate truth.”

“Our lab,” Newt repeats. “As in, a lab we share. Together. As in we’re lab partners that work in the same space in the same building in K-Sci. Together.”

Hermann looks pained at this point, and like he very much regrets stopping to say anything. He casts his eyes upwards, and Newt remembers he’s Jewish, probably. “Dr. Geiszler, what are youー”

“Right, okay, sorry,” Newt says, striding past him and not even thinking until he’s pushing open the first bathroom door he sees, that the look of utter shock on Hermann’s face was probably related to him apologizing for likely the first time. He pushes the thought away, turning the tap to cold and splashing water on his face as his breath picks back up again. He’s in a coma. He’s absolutely in a coma; he hit his head on the rocks of the tide pool, or the edge of that crack in the ground, and now he’s hooked up to life support in the hospital having either a very long death sequence, or a super complicated and pretentious wet dream. Honestly, both are pretty bad.

Newt stares straight at himself in the mirror, sucks in a breath, and smacks himself across the face. His hand leaves a stinging, red mark, but aside from the pain, nothing changes. He doesn’t wake up. He doesn’t even feel like going into the light, wherever it may be. All he can think about is the tiny, niggling thought in the back of his mind that the world of this film already has one portal into another dimension. One that, come to think of it, looks almost exactly like a giant, glowing crack at the bottom of the ocean. 

He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, glancing at his reflection again to ensure that this is real, and not just some terrible Isekai plotline that somehow snuck its way into his life. A burst of color catches his eye, and he blinks. Waves his arm. Then, Newt shakily brings it down and begins unbuttoning his shirt as fast as he can.

As soon as the last button is through the hole, he tears it off and throws it to the floor, watching his chest heave up and down in the mirror, the riot of in-progress, but still brightly colored, Kaiju tattoos staring back at him. Highly different from the sea creature sleeves he’s been slowly chipping away at, but actually, remarkably similar to Flick’s tattoos, plus some in the chest area, obviously.

Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen her at all yet. Isn’t she supposed to be working in the lab with Hermann? Putting the “K” in K-Sci?

The final, damning realization hits Newt like a ton of bricks, and he stumbles back from the mirror to pull out his card again. Dr. Newton Geiszler. K-Science, Biology Division. The guard’s assumption he was collecting samples. “Our” lab. 

Newt is never going to see Dr. Flick Tucker if he stays on this base for a million years, because as far as this particular universe is concerned, she doesn’t exist. She doesn’t need to. Newt’s right here.

His stomach not missing a beat, Newt lurches forward and retches seawater into the sink.

He needs to go. He needs to leave right now; just start running straight for the beach and cannonball into that tide pool and pray to God he can get back through the mini-breach and into his own universe. He’s a _marine biologist_ , for fuck’s sake. A good one, yeah, and a speedy earner of that PhD, but Newt doesn’t know the first thing about dissecting aliens! Flick Tucker has _six_ doctorates! Flick Tucker has been studying the Kaiju since they first appeared! Flick Tuckerー

Flick Tucker isn’t here, is she?

If Newt leaves, how can he know if Flick will magically appear to take his place? Or if, without the other half of K-Sci, without someone to study the Kaiju that are coming and report their findings, without someone to help Hermann and push him to turn that bitchy energy into cold, hard math, this universe won’t be Anteverse two-point-oh in less than a year? Can he really just abandon them, these people he doesn’t know but also _knows_ are brave and kind and don’t deserve to die, to be destroyed just because _he_ wanted to go home?

Newt takes a deep, deep breath, looks himself dead in the eye, and squares his jaw. He is _not_ that selfish, and if _Catch Me If You Can_ can be based on a real life person, well, he can fake it ‘till he makes it in xenobiology and do his best until they catch up to movie time. Hell, he _knows_ everything that’s going to happen; maybe he can try and save more people! All he has to do is wait until Raleigh Becket shows up, Lady Danger is finished being restored, and Drift with a Kaiju braiー

Oh.

Flick Drifts with a Kaiju brain. Twice. And then many, many more times.

He shakes his head to clear it, pushing away the anxiety at the edges of his bravado. Newt’s got four years to figure out another option; less if he finds Raleigh and speeds the restoration along a little bit, but still. He’s not gonna let himself get possessed and used like Flick did. He can be different. He’s got all the cards, obviously. 

Now he just needs to get to work.

* * *

_“The scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defense against the pure emotion of fear.”  
\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

Large blocks of long, scientific text about creatures he hasー or, well, _had_ ー t-shirts of, but has never actually dissected before, don’t initially agree well with Newt, but the upside is that even though he has no memory whatsoever of writing them, he’s somehow managed to make academia moderately comprehensible. His first few weeks are spent putting everything he can into cold storage, then pouring over every article, journal, and diagram of Kaiju he can get his hands on before diving into his own notes. There’s quite a backlog, but honestly, he can see why: these things are _fascinating_.

From what little actual research the movie presents from Flick there have sprung a couple of mini-essays and some fan theories, but Newt finds himself with the delightful surprise that Kaiju are just as, if not even _more_ amazing when you stumble into their next universal conquest. Slipping into the quote-unquote manic obsession of the character is easier than breathing, and he starts bringing piles of notes back to his bunk (which he finds out how to get into… eventually) to pour over and compare with what he knows from his own perspective. Yes the Kaiju are clones, but how was that conclusion properly reached? With the knowledge that their bodies are used for incubation of young, not creation of them, how can Newt analyze them differently?

Hermann is, of course, suspicious as to why his formerly, Newt assumes, viscera-splattered lab partner is suddenly back to the books, but quickly finds new ways to express his ire when Newt decides it's time to put his knowledge to good use, and starts demolishing his theories.

“No, dude, it’s a metaphー it’s like global warming!” he insists one freezing, musty afternoon as 2023 dwindles to a miserable close. Funding is starting to show more obvious signs of running out, evidenced by the fact that Newt has had to fight more and more for samples shipped to him in one piece. He knows they’ve still got almost two years to go before V-Day, and that this is more of a waiting game than a race to find wherever the fuck Raleigh has fucked off to now (which Newt has had exactly zero luck with; thanks, buddy), but the desperation building around the base is palpable, and Hermann is no exception.

He pinches the bridge of his nose briefly, then decides not to make an effort to hide his disdain. “Oh yes, and please tell me how you came to that brilliant comparison.”

Newt strips off his gloves, tossing them haphazardly at the waste bin near his desk, and crosses the line to Hermann’s chalkboards without a second thought. Like, excellent environmental storytelling, but yeesh. Talk about overkill. 

He plucks the piece of chalk from Hermann’s fingers, ignoring his squawk, and points at the rough function of his predictive model scrawled out on the board. “No, look. Your theory is that the Kaiju are just gonna get worse and worse, right? Like, we’re going up in the Cat system with no signs of stopping, and the attacks are starting to get more frequent; how does that not make you think of hurricanes?” Off Hermann’s uncomprehending look, he sighs. “Global warming was specifically predicted to turn hurricanes that would normally take out whole cities into superstorms, and generate more and more of them until we’re seeing multiple simultaneous natural disasters that make Earth completely uninhabitable due to everything being underwater and also a wreck.” He taps the board, leaving a series of white marks. “That’s the Kaiju, dude. Big, ugly, biological hurricanes from the Anteverse.”

Hermann frowns, opening his mouth for a response, then stops. He stares at Newt for a long, silent moment, then snatches the chalk back and quickly writes a series of functions Newt can’t even begin to understand. Newt watches, wondering what kind of long, scathingly theatrical comeback this is supposed to be, until Hermann takes a step back much paler than he was when he began writing. Newt eyes him carefully. “Uh. You okay, dude?”

“I didn’t think of that,” Hermann says quietly, staring now not at his blackboards, but some distant point in space. “They _are_ going to get worse. They’re evolving.”

Newt snorts. “They’re not evolving, dude, it’s an attack system. Basic war strategy.”

This seems to snap Hermann out of it, and his head whips around to stare at Newt, brow creasing. “War strategy?”

“Uh yeah? They know we, logically, can’t hold out forever. It’s a war of attrition. Send in worse and worse and worse guys to first get us really used to winning, then drag it out until finally we meet a Kaiju we can’t beat, and then it’s game over. Move-in day.”

Newt doesn’t exactly realize what he’s said until Hermann ceases to stop staring at him, but his stomach drops when he remembers the year. _Fuck_. Flick didn’t figure out about the Kaiju being an invasion and not feeding until after she Drifted with the brain, didn’t she?

“How do you know that?” Hermann asks, incredulous not with scorn but a slight undercurrent of admiration, and Newt, obviously, panics. 

“Uh… they’re not eating any people?” He winces at the lame excuse before realizing it’s true; the Kaiju _don’t_ eat humans. They go straight for populated areas, but not because of the food source; they need the density for maximum impact. How the hell did no one catch this without mind-melding with one of them?

Hermann, to his credit, finds the lack of provided evidence an insufficient answer, and soon Newt is scrambling to pull data and connections out of his ass that he shouldn’t technically have yet. He’s made some foresight-based notes, though, with enough coded language that it flies, and finally, after two years of this shit, Hermann swallows his pride enough to suggest that perhaps combining their knowledge in an article expanding on this would be beneficial. Newt, who’s wanted to write an actual scientific paper about aliens since he was fifteen, agrees way, way too quickly to be cool, but he supposes the timeline has jumped up at least a couple of weeks, so there’s his good deed for the day.

It’s not an end to the war, though, and despite his own knowledge of the eventual outcome, it’s not like he can tell _Hermann_ that. 

The helplessness is, unexpectedly, the worst part. Sure, Newt knew it was going to be hard to watch people worry and panic over a future that looks increasingly unlikely to happen, but what he didn’t realize is how much he wants to grab each of them by the hands and yell “You get through this! There’s a happy ending! Just hold on a little longer and it’ll all be okay!”. He can’t, though. _That_ is the worst part. Hell, they wouldn’t even believe him if he tried. 

Is he a bad person for not trying anyway? Would there be one person that believes him? Everyone outside the lab already thinks he’s a crazy Kaiju groupie (thanks, Hermann; it shouldn’t sound cute when it’s about him, but it does). Hermann would never buy it. He’d think they were just empty promises sprung from someone as scared and freaked-out as he is. Which, yeah, true. Newt doesn’t have _all_ the answers to what happens before the plot starts, nor does he know everything Flick does. Hell, he’s still gonna have toー

No, no, no he will _not_ , that’s two-ish-kinda-now years down the line and he can fix this. He’ll have a plan.

He can’t sleep one night, samples already sliced to pieces and nothing new coming in for about three months if his memory serves, so Newt grabs his jacket and decides to move his anxious pacing to the roof. At least he’ll get some fresh air.

It’s pleasantly cool when he steps out onto the concrete, a sea breeze blowing the scent of salt through his hair. The door shuts with a dull bang behind him, and the sound apparently startles a figure standing at the railing. They turn, and Newt squints in the darkness to make out their face. It’s Hermann.

He’s bundled in his parka, one slim, pale hand holding a nearly gone cigarette that trails smoke up and around his head, drifting back on the wind. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem surprised to see Newt here. Instead, he turns back to the ocean without a word and takes a drag. Newt supposes that’s as much of an invitation as he’ll get, and walks over to stand beside him. He eyes the cigarette.

“So. You smoke?”

Hermann gives him a mildly quizzical glance. “The same as the first time you saw me, yes.”

Shit. Even after all this time, he keeps forgetting there are memories people have of him that he doesn’t. “Well, y’know,” he says, trying to keep his voice nonchalant, “we haven’t been up here together in a while. I thought maybe you quit.”

Hermann snorts. “What’s the point? Lung cancer doesn’t have a prayer these days.”

Newt feels a spark of irritation in him, and forces himself to choose his words carefully. “Okay, so? You don’t know that. What if, like, two days after we beat the Kaiju, you start coughing up blood? You really wanna go through all this shit to save the world, then put yourself at risk with smoking?”

“You seem very sure of yourself,” he says, and takes another drag. Newt scowls.

“I _am_ , actually, and you should be too. I know it’s hard, and yeah, I’m just as tired as you are, but you can’t keep living your life like it’s gonna end the next time we get an attack. That’s not realistic.”

“And how do you know that?” Hermann snaps, finally turning to look at him. “You’ve seen my predictions, Newton; hell, you’ve seen the Jaegers coming back these days. We are _losing_. Rapidly. And while that certainly doesn’t mean I’m trying any less, there comes a point where you have to gain a bit of perspective.”

“More like catastrophizing,” he replies. Hermann rolls his eyes, cigarette crumpling slightly in his grip.

“While I’m sure your rampant idealism makes you very comfortableー”

“Rampant idealisー fuck you!” Newt shouts, rounding on him. When Hermann starts to retort, he waves his hand. “No, no, I’m _sorry_ if watching my fucking _friend_ get more and more freaked out about his surety of the mounting apocalypse is a little personally draining, but lemme give you your own reality check, dude: fuck your nihilism! Or actually, fuck your pessimism! Maybe we’re ‘technically’ not as much on our A-game as we used to be, maybe our funding is bleeding out, but why the hell should that mean you get to mope around spewing doom and gloom, possible as it might be? IーI mean, do you really think we’re that fucked?”

Hermann is silent for a few seconds afterwards, letting Newt catch his breath. Then, he takes a deep drag, blows it out, and sighs. “Yes.”

“Well we’re not,” Newt says firmly, crossing his arms and leaning forward against the rail. “And you’re wrong.”

A low, scattered laugh escapes from Hermann’s throat. “I wish I shared your optimism. Or your ignorance.”

“It’s not ignorance if Iー” Newt starts, then stops. Maybe to Hermann, that’s exactly what it is. Maybe, without Newt’s magical universe-hopping knowledge of their eventual victory, he’s just drawing the natural conclusions for someone faced with his facts. Newt swallows hard. God, his tone deafness is really reaching new heights here.

He still can’t stand the idea of him so hopeless, so he tentatively reaches out and puts a hand on Hermann’s arm. Hermann startles at the touch, freezing.

“I, uh, get why you feel that,” Newt says, words coming out clumsily from his recitation of what he remembers from therapy. “I mean, I don’t blame you for being scared, dude. So am I. Iー I don’t know exactly what’s gonna happen to us. Seriously.” The kernel of truth in his words, and Hermann’s opening expression, are enough to spur him on. “But… it kills me to see you like this. Like you’re just waiting for the hammer to drop, and you’ve given up on trying to live before it does. Nobody deserves thatー especially you.”

He gently takes the cigarette out of Hermann’s hands, far too easily for it to have been unwanted, and puts it out on the railing. “Life’s still happening, no matter what those things say. People are still doing their jobs, and having kids, and buying coffee, and falling in love. Humans don’t stop being human just because things are rough. We never have.”

He catches Hermann’s eye and finds himself held there, cigarette rapidly cooling in one hand, the other still on his arm. There were never any moments for him like this, in the movie. Ones where he dropped the crotchety, uptight mathematician persona and just got to be… a person. A scared, vulnerable thirty-something guy with bad habits and messy hair and dreams he hoped wouldn’t be crushed along with the rest of the planet. Newt finds he likes this Hermann even more; maybe he likes that only he’s getting to see it.

Hermann thins his lips subconsciously, a nervous habit, and moments after his gaze moves to them, Newt realizes he wants to kiss him. Hermann. Not Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, just… just Hermann. The guy that somehow learned Newt’s terrible coffee order _and_ how he likes it late at night in the lab. The only person to ever explain Algebra in a way he somewhat understands, and has obviously learned enough about biology to go toe to toe, even if he’d never admit it. The hands draping his parka over Newt when he passes out at his desk again and again, which he didn’t even know actually happened outside of cheesy romance novels, but he certainly isn’t complaining becauseー becauseー

Oh fuck, Newt’s in love with him.

He can’t kiss him, though. He can’t. He has to stick to the story at least here, and there’s nothing in the script about Flick falling in love with Hermann. At least, obviously. There were some people that thought they had chemistry, mainly because weirdos will see any male-female pair and think “Oh! They’re standing next to each other! True love!”, but Newt had always assumed they’d never met an introverted gay man in their lives, and barely resisted getting into arguments about it. Barely. 

The fact still remains that this isn’t part of the equation, so despite the bright, rushing instinct in his chest to take Hermann’s other hand and kiss him until neither of them can breathe, he doesn’t. He’s not gonna fuck possibly everything up just because what he wants goes a little off-script. Hell, Hermann definitely doesn’t even like him like that, regardless of Newt’s gender. He swallows hard and pulls away. 

“So,” he says, voice cracking once before he winces and clears his throat. He pointedly doesn’t look at Hermann’s expression. “So. Don’t beat yourself up over ‘not doing enough’ when you’re genuinely doing everything you can. At least, I can tell you are. You don’t need to punish yourself for still being alive when that’s literally the end goal here.” He smiles crookedly. 

Newt can feel Hermann’s gaze burn on him for just a moment longer, then hears a soft chuckle. “I can’t recall when you developed this much tact, but I’m certainly not complaining.”

“Oh, dude,” he replies, shaking ash off the cigarette and slipping it into his jacket pocket to throw away later, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

* * *

_“Inside where nothing shows, I am the essence of a man spinning double-headed coins, and betting against himself in private atonement for an unremembered past.”  
\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

On December 30th, 2024, Newt glances at the calendar on his desk, does a few quick calculations, and immediately begins having a panic attack.

Flick is supposed to Drift with the brain on January 8th, 2025. How the hell did they get this close to the date without him noticing? Wasn’t he supposed to have shaved some time off, even? His stomach twists, and he leaps to his feet and runs a hand through his hair, then snatches the calendar up and starts flipping through the past few months. Shatterdomes closed down besides Hong Kong? Check. Lady Danger moved in and restored? Check. Newt having any plan whatsoever on how to _not_ Drift with a Kaiju brain? Fuck, fuck, _no_.

Well, there is the obvious one, but he’s been holding off just because of the almost-guaranteed result. _Technically_ , Hermann wasn’t affected by the Precursors when he and Flick Drifted with Kodachi together. The neural load, split between them, was low enough to prevent any influence from taking root. If he and Hermann Drifted together with the _first_ brain as well…

By all logic, it should work. There’s just the issue of, in the movie, Hermann being a hundred percent sure Flick will kill herself if she tries. There’s no _way_ he’d throw himself in with Newt if he asked. Or, well. Ninety-nine ways out of a hundred. Possibly couldn’t hurt to try.

The New Year’s party is grim this time, with everyone either making a halfhearted effort at celebration of another cycle completed without total annihilation, or not even bothering to hide their suspicions this will be their last. Hermann produces a bottle of peppermint schnapps, halfway gone but who’s complaining, and he and Newt settle in on the floor of Newt’s bunk to drink until they lose the plot of the movie playing on his laptop. 

He’s only had the American kind before, just tolerable enough when mixed into something else, and the significantly higher ABV has him only four swigs in before his mouth starts feeling warm and languid. Hermann’s good leg, pushed up and balancing Hermann’s chin on his knee, is only a few inches from his own, and Newt wonders if he could subtly press them together and blame it on the alcohol. 

He thinks better of it and passes the bottle back before tilting his head to rest on the edge of the mattress. “D’y’know what’s happening?” he asks. Hermann glances up, startled.

“Generally?” Newt snickers.

“No, dumbass, in the movie. I can’t tell if she’s in love with him yet, or still wants to throw him in the Thames. You people have the stupidest river names, by the way; _t-eh-ms_? The letters don’t match up at all, dude. It’s like fucking French.”

Hermann snorts in the general direction of the bottle. “‘You people’. I’m just as German as you, and you know it. Even more so, consideringー”

“No, no,” Newt holds up a swerving hand, “we are not doing your rant on the Americanization of Berlin that did not actually happen; fuck you. I left your prissy ass intact this year. Don’t push your luck.”

Hermann shakes his head and takes a long drink, throat contracting and Adam’s apple bobbing as he does so. Newt finds his eyes glued to it, at first, he thinks, because objectively it’s a very nice throat, but the flash of an image of hands clenched around it, washed pale by blue light, makes his stomach roil. He sobers slightly. “Anyway, there’s, uh. Something I wanted to ask you, actually

Hermann swallows and wipes his mouth delicately with the back of his hand, setting the bottle down between his legs and turning to give Newt his full attention (or as much as he can give while very close to pissing drunk. He’s an even bigger lightweight than Newt). Newt feels his heart skip with the weight of that gesture, Hermann’s focus always something he’s cautious with, but never unhappy to receive. He nods slightly. “So, I’ve got a theory. Kind of. And a way to test it, too. But it’s not the most…” he pauses, looking for a way in that doesn’t shut Hermann down completely, “fantastic sensation in the world, probably,” he adds quickly, “so it’ll be a little self-experimentation. Sort of. Because, um.” He rubs his thumb on the side of his thigh nervously. “I was sorta hoping you’d gー do it with me.”

Hermann frowns, considering this for a moment. “What are you proposing?”

He winces even as he says it. “Drifting with a Kaiju brain?”

The moment the words leave his mouth, Hermann’s expression drops into one of shock, then shutters almost immediately. Newt holds up a hand, grasping for him to listen, but he can already tell it’s a lost cause. “No, no, waitー think about it: pilots get the memories and thoughts and information from their co-pilots when Drifting with them, so why wouldn’t trying it with a Kaiju brain work? It’d be a way to find out exactly what they’re thinking, exactly what their next move is, and learn so much more about the way they work and their universeー Hermann!” he exclaims, but Hermann is reaching for his cane. He grabs the hand moving for it. “Hermann, it’ll work, I promise, but will you please just listen to me?”

“If you are actually considering this inane, idiotic, _suicidal_ idea that has somehow wormed its way into your mind and convinced you that it could possibly work, then no, Newton, you do not deserve my attention,” Hermann snarls, rounding on him. Newt feels something large and metallic lodge itself in the back of his throat.

“I _know_ it’s going to work, okay, I can’tー I can’t tell you how, but I do! But I need a second person toー” he cuts himself off, the desperation in his voice almost sickening as Hermann pushes himself up and starts for the door. Newt follows, scrambling to his feet and feeling his heart sink in his chest. His voice cracks on his next words. “Hermann, _please_.”

For the tiniest of moments, Hermann pauses. Then he straightens and turns to look at Newt one last time. His gaze is stone cold. “If you value your life, your career, andー and any sense you might still possess, you will not even think of this again because it is _insane_ , Newton. It’s not going to work. And you’re lying to yourself if you believe otherwise.”

He snaps the door open and slams it shut behind him without another word, leaving Newt to flinch at the noise. As the echo of Hermann’s footsteps fade down the hall, he feels panicked, futile tears prick at the corners of his eyes. What the _fuck_ is he going to do? What the fuck _can_ he do? A Drift partner is his only hope, and he can't think of anyone other than Hermann who he would be compatible with. There’s no other way to get the information he doesn’t know yet, and less than a week until the double event needs to happen, and Newt feels a sob crumple inside his chest as he realizes he’s out of options. Nobody’s going to help him on this. It’s not like he can ask them honestly. He’sー he’s all alone.

Something cold but determined settles in his gut, and he sets his jaw. Okay. Okay, sure. He can work with alone. He’s good at that. 

A hail Mary, then. He needs to make a Drift recording anyway. There’s a strong possibility Hermann will find it. If nobody is going to _fucking_ save his ass then _fine_. Newt can take care of himself.

* * *

_“A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself.”  
\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

There are two things that go differently. The first one is this: Newt presses record so Hermann can know it’s not his fault.

He says, “Kaiju-Human Drift experiment, take one. Hermann: this is a confession. For what, I don’t exactly know yet, but I’m trying to be prepared with the information I have, so… consider it a blanket statement. This also isn’t an experiment. I know the outcome and I know that my hypothesis is correct. The thing, though, is that I’m hoping it isn’t.” 

He laughs nervously, twirling the recorder in his hand. “I’m really, really hoping it’s not. Not because I don’t want to communicate with the Kaiju; that’s the crux of the issue, actually: I know I’m going to. What I’m hoping doesn’t happen is what comes after. But this is all really cryptic, and you’re probably wondering what that statement was for, so let me start from the beginning and see how far we get before… yeah. 

“The basic facts are these: I’m not from here. Notーnot from this planet; I’m not from this dimension. I’m not from the Anteverseー I’m not secretly a Kaiju. I’m from a version of Earth, but in that version all of this isn’t real. It’s a movie. Two movies, technically, but I’m trying to make sure that the second one doesn’t happen, although that would be pretty beneficial for both this universe and mine. In it I do Drift with the brainー or, well, not meー somebody else. Her name is Flick. She’s a biologist. I’m not a biologist, I’m a _marine_ biologist, and I don’t have six PhDs, I have one.” He swallows hard, glancing over at the cobbled-together PONS a few feet away. It’s a frighteningly exact replica. “In the movie, though, she does Drift with a brain and what happens is that she’s right. All of the information she learns, I’m going to tell you and Pentecost in a couple of minutes, so I won’t repeat myself, but the other thing that happens is that the Drift does, in fact, go both ways. Again. The Precursorsー that’s the Kaiju overlordsー get into her brain. They make her Drift with a new brain, ‘cause this one’s gonna get pretty banged up in a minute, and fuck with her mind, and basically they end up possessing her. You don’t notice, although I don’t really blame you. You guys weren’t super close; I think you were like narrative foils or something? It’s all very poetic. You’d hate it. 

“But you don’t notice, and nobody else does either, and she leaves for this big startup corporation called Shao Industries. Remember that name. And if ‘I’ー I use that letter in air quotesー” he makes them with his free fingers as well, “ever start talking about going, or any other place like it? Don’t let me. That isn’t me. I don’t know how it works, and I don’t know how soon they get inー maybe they won’t get in!” His voice breaches a slightly hysterical peak. “Maybe they’ll see I know what they’re doing and give up. I really hope they do. But what you need to know is that you _cannot_ under _any_ circumstances trust me. Or the person you think is meー Iー I don’t know. 

“I mean, that right there is what really scares me, because up until this point I’ve known just about everything. I’ve tried to fix what I can; I hope I have. But I need you to hear this, and I need you to do whatever you can to stop me. Don’t let me leave for Shao. Don’t let them hurt anyone. Drag me by my fingernails to the infirmary for all I care. Just please, _please_ help me make sure a lot of horrible, dangerous things don’t happen. I need you to trust me that you can’t trust me. Monstrously overdramatic, I’m aware, but… I know I sound crazy. I know you might not believe me. But I also know that you still count the day you found out you couldn’t be a pilot because of your leg as the worst day of your life, despite everything that’s happened since then, and you feel so guilty about it but it’s true. So there’s your proof, I guess.”

Newt takes a deep breath, sliding his thumb back and forth over the button in his hand. No going back now. “I’m still going to Drift with this brainー I don’t really have any choice. It’s not your fault you said no. You didn’t know, and you never would have believed meー I wouldn’t have. Whatever happens, no matter what? Don’t you dare blame yourself. I’d tell you everything; I wish I could, I don’t want to hide all this tomorrow when you’re in my head. But I think I’ve got a bad savior complex for things I love too much for logic to make a difference. You make me so stupid. I hope I get to hear you tell me that again.” 

He presses the button, wondering which universe is laughing at him now.

The second thing that goes differently is not the Drift; it’s sickening and dizzying and painful; he comes to clutched to Hermann’s chest (did that happen to Flick? The world is on fire and Newt’s head is somewhere with blue bleeding into everything; all light everywhere) and stumbles into a chair, vomits, spits out a combination of what he caught and line fragments he remembers (oh God the butterfly effect, wings flapping behind his eyes, he feels like he’s dying on his first day alive), and gets sent off to find a mob boss. He does dodge the knife this time, but it’s small enough that the universe probably won’t catch it. Or maybe it does. Newt needs all the luck he can save.

The moment Otachi’s corpse begins to twitch, he takes off running without a word to Hannibal. He watches from _several_ yards away as the baby swallows the gangster whole, hand pressed to his chest as his heart pounds just beneath it. Whatever trauma he can avoid, really.

The second thing that goes differently is when he’s shoving the needle into Kodachi’s brain, mouth on autopilot, trying to appear as if he doesn’t know what Hermann’s thinking. The look, though, in his eyes when he offersー the bright fear and excitement and life that sparkles straight at Newt, trusting him whollyー knocks the breath from his lungs. He fumbles his words, “You would do that for me? Or, I meanー” he corrects himself quickly, “you would do that with me?”

He trusts Hermann to pick up the slack in gathering info while Newt tries to shield his mind, hand still tingling from where their fingers were laced together just moments before. He doesn’t catch his breath until they’re in the helicopter, spaced-out and reeling, then stumbling into the control and screaming into the microphone, Newt tapping Tendo on the shoulder to watch for Raleigh’s life sign a little longer, c’mon dude he knows you're in there, and then LOCCENT explodes as the planet does not and Newt thinks oh God, maybeー maybe he’s going to be okay.

The first nightmare happens three days later. He throws up in the bathtub, listens to a chapter of _The Martian_ , and takes some melatonin. 

One week to the date, a panic attack crashes down on him in the middle of an interview with a mildly well known international newspaper, and he excuses himself to huddle in the bright, impersonal men’s room and grip his arms until his nails break the skin. The reporter asks him what his plans are now that the Kaiju are defeated. He can tell his laugh makes her uncomfortable.

After two weeks, there’s a nightmare every single night of increasing disturbance and blue-tinted gore. He rips a set of lungs out with massive claws, digs his teeth into a continent, and ignores Hermann’s remark about the bags under his eyes. The Frankenstein PONS still sits gathering dust in a corner on his side. It catches his eye one day, and he feels his stomach turn to stone.

The hallucinations begin a month and a half in; shadows he knows are a trick but startle him anyway, phantom sensations of teeth in his back, laughter that burns into his skull as he hunches further and further into his seat, gritting his teeth and breathing in and out in careful counts of three.

He knows everything that’s going to happen. He knows this is their plan; drive him insane. Leave him with no other choice. _Fuck_ them. The story stops here. He _ended_ it. Happily ever fucking after.

When Newt bumps into Tendo in the mess hall and is asked how his week has been, he pauses for a long time before realizing the entire thing is a fuzzy white blank. He doesn’t even remember where he left his jacket. His stomach is a perpetual ache, head pounding from frowning nonstop or furrowing his brow in concentration, and God, please, he just wants it to _stop_.

Flick didn’t get possessed right after her second solo Drift, right? There was an interim period. There had to be. He knows it isn’t the most logical theory, but maybe if he can get some stronger physical evidence for abnormalities in his brain, he can convince the people in the infirmary who insisted on his “clean bill of health” that something is wrong. They’d have to believe him. One Drift, for proof of just how much he’s hurting, and then they’ll help him. Like aー he doesn’t want to think about those memories, what his own tattoos are covering, but the comparison works. It’s different, though. This time there are bigger things on the line than his own stupid problems.

“Kaiju-Human Drift experiment, take two,” he croaks into the recorder, slipping it into its place in his shirt pocket and rolling back his shoulders. Every muscle in his body aches. Maybe he can get a massage therapist in there too, if he plays his cards right. Newt takes a deep breath in, blows it out carefully, and hovers his thumb over the button. It’s different. _He’s_ different. He knows what could happen; he knows what’s at stake, so he’ll be better. He’ll keep the story straight.

He presses the button, and the world dissolves into agonizing release.

It returns in muted shades, swimming into focus as Newt finds himself sprawled on the ground, head pounding. He runs a hand through his hair, tongue swollen and dry, and coughs. The sensation feels wrong somehowー different. It isn’t until he tries again that he realizes he isn’t breathing.

Dread drops into the pit of his stomach.

“You know,” comes a voice from in front of him, and Newt raises his head slowly, horror rising in him, to see his body standing next to the new brain’s tank. It appears to be perfectly at home, unfamiliarity only betrayed by the awkward angle of his arms, and the manic glint in their eyes. “As much as it pains us to say this, we really should be thanking you.”

He lets out a choked-off noise. “No.” The blood he doesn’t have anymore is rushing in his ears. “No, no, no, it didn’t happen this fast!”

The Precursors _giggle_. “Oh, you’re correct. For _Flick_ , it didn’t. But this isn’t her universe, is it, Newt Geiszler?” They bare their teeth in a too-wide grin. “You always did encourage throwing subtlety out the window.”

Newt tries to clamber to his feet, unsteady as his world spins around him. “Iー I don’t understand. How did youー this doesn’t make any sense! It took months for them to possess her!”

“It did,” the Precursors agree. They smile even wider. “They played the long game. We don’t need to, though. What’s the point? You already knew our plan. We’d just be giving you a very dangerous head start. And, despite what we know you’re thinking?” They shake their head patronizingly. “We’re not stupid.”

“You can’t do this,” Newt tries, but they laugh again; a high, cruel cackle.

“We can! We will! We already did. You’re right: you’ve got all the answers. And now, so do we.” They remove the tape recorder from their pocket and lazily drop it to the floor, watching smugly as Newt flinches at the crack it makes. Then, when he realizes what they’re about to do, every drop of color drains from his face.

“Noー” he starts, but it’s too late. They shift their weight to their left leg and rest their right foot, clad in Newt’s thick, steel-toed boot, on the recorder.

“Yes,” they purr, cheeks nearly splitting and eyes flat and bright. “Because this time? We’re going to do things right. And no one,” the recorder makes another ominous cracking sound, “is going to get in our way.”

The scream Newt lets out is, to everyone but them, as silent as a ghost. It doesn’t matter. The Precursors lift their foot and bring it down hard, smashing the device to pieces and grinding the sparking metal to dust beneath their heel.

_END OF ACT ONE_


	2. Tails

_“Wheels have been set in motion, and they have their own pace, to which we are…condemned. Each move is dictated by the previous one – that is the meaning of order. If we start arbitrarily it'll just be a shambles: at least, let us hope so. Because if we happened, just happened to discover, or even suspect, that our spontaneity was part of their order, we'd known that we were lost.”_  
_\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

If Newt were the kind of person that remembered how to laugh anymore, he would honestly find the entire situation hilarious, because it still does take ten years.

The Precursors forget, at least up until they land the Shao gig and are presented with the actual duties of being a head of R&D, that Newt doesn’t actually know _how_ to build giant evil drones with Kaiju brains inside them, or how to clone those brains in the first place, or how to get all of those plans and plots and schemes past the immovable object that is corporate bureaucracy. It takes them a week to remember how to use Microsoft Excel. 

They’re still laughing, of course. They don’t mind the wait. It draws things out; reminds Newt of the inevitable, and sends his despair through a blender year after year after year. He almost would have preferred things moving quicker; at least then the end would be over with. They feed off his dread like those parasitic ants, sauntering his body around in startup-whore-chic suits and grinding his ghost into pure pain every time they reach for that PONS headset. He wonders if this is exactly how Flick felt; helpless and uncertain of everything but how the night would end, and the world soon after.

Maybe she didn’t give them as much. She didn’t know what she could have done better. She didn’t fail as completely and pathetically as Newt. There was nothing she could have done to prevent them taking over; she never knew that was their plan. Newt, in his desperate assurance that he knew the story betterー his hubris over a woman who in her ignorance of her own story, saved the worldー has made literally everything worse. There’s no way he’s getting out of this now. Not when they know not only every move he’d make, but everyone else’s. 

So he waits. He waits for the years to tick down, for the call to come for a visit to the Moyulan Shatterdome, and the feeling of Hermann’s pulse beating out of his throat he knows is coming. For that pulse to stop under his hands. For the world to end.

That’s what they’re waiting for: the control room. They can’t get Hermann alone anywhere else, and they know he’s the key to stopping the Shatterdome from regrouping. And they want to drive it in. The one place Newt will be closest to him for the first time in ten years; they want it to be in his nightmares for as long as the world is left standing. 

In the helicopter, floating beside them and watching the bright blue water below, he snorts. The Greek tragedy of it all. At least it’s a better story thematically.

_You’re still so preoccupied with that,_ they say silently, and Newt frowns.

“What do you mean? What else do I have to be preoccupied _with_?”

_You think everything has to be so poetic. You want meaning so badly. Why? It’s not like it helped you in the end._

He glances out the window again, watching the sunlight bounce off the gentle waves. “Well you aren’t hooking me up with any better coping mechanisms, so. If I want to pretend, I can. Who knows; maybe in some other universe, someone is watching me and thinking what they could have done better. Maybe this thing goes on forever, and I’m just another poor-decisions domino in the line.”

They roll their eyes. _You’ve got the poor decisions part right._

_Yeah,_ he thinks. But hindsight is twenty-twenty, and maybe everybody thinks they could do it better when it’s not them choosing. He didn’t realize how terrifying the act of becoming possessed was until it was his mind the Precursors were assaulting, and he caved just like Flick did. Nobody’s noticed, all the same. He didn’t fucking change anything. 

Nobody noticed. Again. What did he thinkー people would somehow care about him _more_? That he was more deserving of someone noticing his pain than an equally innocent, if not moreso, person? He thinks back to that moment with Hermann on the roof all the time, and the dip of his stomach when he realized that knowing all the beats doesn’t matter if people still think you’re an asshole.

It still hurts more, though. He thoughtー it’s incorrect and probably selfish, but when Hermann let Newt pull him close with that shy, thin smile as LOCCENT celebrated, he wondered if his feelings weren’t quite alone between the two of them. He’d stayed with Hermann the whole night through the loud, raucous party, probably defying more than a few of his expectations. The world had been too loud for that; his heartbeat not having slowed since they scrambled for the helicopter. He needed somewhere quiet, and so did Hermann, so that’s what they were for each other. Two deep breaths in a world grown so used to holding its own. 

Newt would give anything for that quiet now; the person and the feeling. He hasn’t been alone in yearsー not alone in the sense that there’s no one around, but that he doesn’t feel the need to be some modified version of himself. Being crammed in a lab with just Hermann felt the same as being in his room: being. End action. 

He watches Hermann’s smile when they land, bright and hopeful and crushed so easily by the Precursors’ flippancy. He wonders how quickly it would disappear if he knew the truth; not just who he was speaking to, but what Newt had done. His stomach turns at knowledge he’ll have to see Hermann’s face when the first one occurs. At least he hid the second from the Drift.

During the Shao presentation, Hermann glances over at him and rolls his eyes. His mouth crooks up the slightest bit, still thin and wide and awkward if not for the strangely complete picture it makes the rest of his face. Newt doesn’t know whether he wants to burst into tears, or rib him with his elbow and mutter, “Can you believe this lady? Adam Smith isn’t gonna fuck you, buddy”. 

“You knew Dr. Gottlieb,” says Shao, and Newt thinks _No, he knew me. Even when I lied to him for five years, he knew me better than anyone else. How am I supposed to explain that? The only word that fits is one I’ll never deserve_.

He watches them stand almost casually in the corridor, waiting. There are people rushing around them, panicking about the attack, but the Precursors stay so still. Like a statue. Actors in the wings. A curtain that’s never, ever coming down.

There’s a faint set of footsteps growing louder behind them, irregular and accompanied by a third. A smooth, perfectly curved smile slides across their face. Newt feels his heart drop into his shoes.

Showtime.

* * *

_“There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said— no.”_  
_\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

The moment Newt hates himself most comes when he wonders, just for a second, if it’s worth it to try and speak to Hermann at all. 

There are a few long, silent beats in the elevator as they stand there, Hermann’s face lit up stark and pale like a saint hanging off a church wall, before the fighting starts. Newt lets himself float there, watching the shifting shadows play off his jaw and entertaining a flurry of disgust at the notion of doing nothing. It seems like the most sensible idea.

What does he have to lose? Hell, what does he even have to _gain_ by fighting? They won. It’s over. They know when Shao is due to burst in with the gun, and how long it takes a human body to die of strangulation, and they’ve planned it out down to the moment. They know his only hope is to keep Hermann alive until he can get free, then for them to get captured, and even after that… what next? A lifetime in prison, or executed after they realize the Precursors aren’t letting go? 

He’s so fucking pathetic. Of course he’s going to try. Better he stays strapped to that chair in the Shatterdome basement, and the world still there and Hermann alive, then a quick end where everybody loses. Newt’s gotten pretty jaded over the past decade, but he’s notー he doesn’t _want_ to be a monster. 

It’s what he realized, after thinking about it with Hermann on the roof, and even that moment panicking at the sink all those years ago: this isn’t all about him. This isn’t only his story. There are thousands upon thousands of lives at stake here, and Newt’s job isn’t to play the hero. He’s never been that guy. If he can do a small partー any partー to save as many people as he can? Fine. That’s as good a blaze of glory as any.

He keeps the gun from straying too far towards Hermann in the ensuing struggle, gathering his determination as they burst into the control room. Hermann has on his _oh, bugger, this was a dreadful idea_ face, and Newt knows with the tiny burst of warmth in his chest it causes that whatever happens in the next few minutes, he’s not giving this anything less than everything he has left.

The moment is funny, being seen from first person. Hermann’s wide, horrified eyes. The ache in Newt at the guilt he likely feels, and how undeserved it is. He wonders if he could do this if he didn’t know how much Hermann believed what he was saying. He finds he doesn’t care.

The reality of _this_ time sinks in, however, when just before launching themselves with outstretched hands at Hermann’s throat, the Precursors give him a split-second grin. Newt feels ice bloom in his stomach. They’re not pulling any punches this time. They’re going to kill him, or get shot trying.

They don’t care if Shao is coming or not.

Hermann makes a sharp, panicked sound when their fingers dig into his neck. Newt can’t remember what breathing feels like. The world rushes around him, blurry and dizzy, then snaps into focus. There’s a ringing in his ears.

Newt doesn’t know if Flick screamed at this part; maybe not, maybe she didn’t care. Maybe to her, Hermann was just another person they were forcing her to hurt; another stamp of guilt on a conscience overflowing with red, with what-ifs, with I should have been better. Maybe to Dr. Flick Tucker, the world didn’t really start ending when her hands were around his throat.

Newt is not Dr. Flick Tucker.

He screams. He screams as loud as his incorporeal, useless lungs will let him, grabbing at his hands and watching as his own slip right through them. He doesn’t know what to do; how did she do it? How did she get through enough to say something? He’s struck with an even deeper terror than the white-hot, consuming one filling him right now: _he doesn’t know how to do this_.

He paws at his hands again, scrabbling over the solid force around Hermann’s throat growing tighter and tighter with every useless, pathetic moment he spends panicking, but he doesn’t know what else to do. He can’t think; there’s the vague sense of Hermann speaking to him, a one-sided conversation more a catalogue of empty, beautiful words than anything else, and Newt looks down, eyes burning, to let a sharp, inhuman cry wrench itself from his throat.

It’s then he looks at his hands— their hands— _his_ hands. He sees Hermann holding them, the thumb stroking a soft, tender line back and forth across the skin of one, and moving over the ghost of his own. Another cry catches in his throat, becoming a weak, startled breath.

The memories start, already swirling in a mess of guilt but now taking on a stark new light as Newt stares down at the crowding of hands covering Hermann’s throat, the way his mouth keeps forming words out of blind, idiotic hope Newt can hear them. But he always does. Even when Hermann didn’t think he was listening, even when Newt wanted to throw every stick of his precious chalk at the wall, he couldn’t tear himself away from that mind and that voice and the man they belonged to. Rancor was accepted, praise was preferred, but ignorance was the one thing that sunk in Newt’s stomach like a stone. He gave that to Hermann for ten years. What could have possibly drawn him back after all this time?

He’s here, though. He’s still here. He’s stroking his thumb across Newt’s hands, the hands that are trying so hard to kill him, and that alone would be cause for astonishment but the strongest, most singular memory of all is the scene played out in the movie, because Hermann Gottlieb never held Flick Tucker’s hands the way he’s holding Newt’s.

Newt feels his heart scramble up his chest and into his throat. Of course he had changed something. He was always going to. He thought maybe an attack would be predicted faster, or a report would be turned in on a different day, but it wasn’t just about him; it never was: he had changed Hermann. He had— the thought is so impossible after all this time Newt doesn’t even dare think it, but the fire that for years has been smoldering in his chest crackles like an engine and roars to life. 

There was one, single moment of freedom he had, and Newt knows his lines by heart. He knows what he’s supposed to say. Hell, Hermann deserves the apology and a thousand more just like it. But Newt is so tired of apologizing for all the ways he had stuck to the script. That was not his universe. And this was not his fucking life.

Almost without thinking, he feels the rush of sensation that is his hands on Hermann’s warm, heaving skin, and the salty stream of tears down his face. Every muscle in his mind burns with the effort; he’ll make it worth it, though. The ending wasn’t set in stone anyway. They never finished the story, so fine. Newt will do it for them.

Breath screaming in his lungs, he croaks out in a small, determined voice, “Fuck the story.”

Then he throws himself to the floor.

His body feels like it’s on fire, every limb and muscle and neuron pulsing an agonizing _no_ as the Precursors claw at the insides of his skull. Air wheezes out of him, and he stumbles backwards to sprawl on his back, chest heaving, before scrambling to his feet in a cluster of confused signals pulsing back and forth between him and them. Hermann lets out a broken gasp from behind him, but Newt pushes all his focus into propelling his body towards the wall of the lab and slamming himself into it.

Pain explodes in the spot where his head hits the plexiglass, and he rams his forehead towards it again, trying to gather enough force to black out either from the injury, or the sensation of someone crushing his skull with a nutcracker. He throws himself againー _thunk!_ and feels a rush of warmth just above his eye. Good. They said he liked it when it hurt? He’ll show them just how fucking much.

There’s the vague sound of a voice behind himー maybe Shao finally showing up to finish him offー but Newt grits his teeth and pulls himself back one more time, forcing his body not to brace for the impact and hurling his head at the smooth glass. There’s a final burst of nauseating pain and thenー

Darkness.

* * *

_“Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us along as inexorably as the wind and current…”_  
_\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

The sensation returns to his fingers first. He doesn’t even realize that’s what it is for a few seconds, so used to the feather-light numbness of being a ghost, but the pins and needles start winding their way up his hands and arms, and Newt finds he’s able to twitch his thumb and wonders why the action gives him such an alien little thrill. His brain is, clearly, taking a moment.

He’s somewhere with light pressing just outside his closed eyelids, the not-color warm behind the blackness. A sheet, clearly thin, lays just on top of his skin, but there’s something thicker and heavier on top of that he can’t discern. The mattressー he must be on a bedー dips slightly near his knee, and his neck aches from the wimpy pillow supporting it. His headー

The dull, throbbing ache hits him all at once, as well as the feeling of something sticking to his forehead. Tape? Why would there be tape on his forehead? Did they leave another sticky note for something he forgot to do, and the moment they clock his consciousness he’ll be getting the third degree about it? This certainly doesn’t _feel_ like the bed in the penthouse; for all the nightmares he woke up from there, it was admittedly fucking fantastic. And barely used. They must have collapsed into it while he was spaced out; possibly from hunger if the sudden gurgle of his empty stomach provides any clues. The pulse of the headache lands on a stressed note, and Newt winces, a tiny groan slipping past his lips.

The weight on the mattress beside him shifts sharply, then disappears. A hand lands on his arm. There’s a soft voice near his head saying, in an oddly hopeful tone, “Newton?”

Something clicks in the back of his mind; recognition. _Hermann_.

It all comes flooding back in a rush of ice through his veins: the meeting, the attack, the control room, his hands around Hermann’s throat, his body smashing against the wall, everything that comes afterー oh _God_. He gasps, eyes flying open and scrambling bolt upright as the room immediately begins to spin around him, nausea and panic warring in his stomach as his mind races through all the people he knows must be dead, the destruction _he’s_ caused, the prison he’ll be trapped in for the rest of hisー

“ーNewton! Newton, please, calm down; are you alright? What’s wrong?”

Hermann’s hand swims into focus, now clutching at his arm, and his face, concerned and flushed, leaning in close to Newt’s own. He’s sitting in a skinny plastic chair pulled up by the side of the bed, a discarded book sprawled in his lap, and it’s then Newt realizes this is not, in fact, a dark cell and a chair he’s restrained to, but a bed in the infirmary. He glances directly upwards at the bright lights on the ceiling and winces as a blinding pain shoots through his skull. The hand that flies up to touch his head connects with a bandageー there’s a gauze patch where he must have hit his head against the glass. 

“The attack,” he gasps out, eyes still shut tight against the glare. “Theー the attack, the second attack, how manyー”

A second hand comes up to hold his other arm. “Newton, noー” Hermann interrupts him, “what ‘second attack’? The drones?”

Newt shakes his head slightly, which only worsens the pain. “No, no, theー the one after. There’s one after. FlーtheyーIーthere’s more Kaiju, and bugs, andー and they make a bigger Kaijuー”

“ _Newton_ ,” Hermann says again, slower and firmer. “That didn’t happen.”

Newt freezes. His hand comes away from his face slowly, and he blinks his eyes open. “Whーwhat?”

Hermann looks at him gently, not moving his hands. He pitches his voice low and comforting, like Newt is a wild animal he doesn’t want to spook. “There was no Mega-Kaiju. There wasn’t even enough time for the three others to fully escape from the new Breach; Miss Shao caused a near-citywide blackout, but it was done. You’re not in prison. You’re in the infirmary. It’s alright.”

All the breath rushes from Newt’s body in a single, dizzying sigh of relief. “Theyー Tokyo’s okay?”

Hermann nods. “The base is a bit banged up from the drones, and we have quite a few more full beds than usual, but no one was killed.” He smiles slightly. “We can do without the landing dock for a little while, I’m sure.”

Newt nods slowly, careful of the pain still gripping his head, then pauses. “Wait. How did youー” 

The question dies in his throat when he notices Hermann’s expression. It’s fallen to one of something like shock and horror and a thing he can’t quite name, and Newt braces himself for the caveat until the first thing he says, quiet and flat and stunned, is, “You knew.”

Newt feels his blood freeze solid. “Iー” he croaks, but the words catch in his throat, held back for so long, the pressure building up and up until he’s almost choking on it, thisー excuse? Explanation? Reasoning for ten years ofー he doesn’t have the words for it. They’re there, though, pushing through and spilling out of his mouth before he can stop himself. “Iー I’m so sorry,” he tries, voice cracking and eyes burning hot, “I tried, Hermann, Iー _tried_ so hard; I wasn’t gonna let them get me like she did, but everything started not making sense, and I was scared all the time, and Iー I started seeing things, and they _knew_ , they were waiting, and I didn’t know what else to doー I didn’t know they would know, and I left you a message but they brー broke it, so I thought I fucked everything up and I _did_ ー”

“You knew what would happen to you,” Hermann stops him, his voice so quiet it drives a knife through Newt’s chest. “What they would do. And you Drifted with it anyway. The first time.”

Newt feels the words inside him finally run out, and huffs out a little puff of breath. His feet shuffle against the plastic-y mattress. “Well,” he finally says, “well I had to. It’s how sheー or I guess _I_ ー helped save the world. There wasn’t any other option.” He gives a broken laugh, Hermann’s words from years ago coming back to him. “I mean, with worldwide destruction a certain alternative, did I really have a choice?” 

He forces himself to look at Hermann again, sick to his stomach and waiting for the blow, when he notices the tears clinging to the corners of his eyes. He looks about as devastated as Newt feels, but Newt doesn’t understand why until he says, “There was. You asked me to, the first time. And I said no.”

Newt resists the urge to shake his head furiously, dizziness still hovering at the corners of his vision. Instead he insists, “Hermann, no; of course you did! Whー what I was saying would have obviously sounded crazy to you, and I didn’t even think it would work because _you_ didn’t know what I did, and even if I had _told_ you, you would have thought I was nuts because it _is_!” He pauses for a moment to catch his breath, hand coming down without thinking to rest on Hermann’s. “It isn’t your fault I wasn’t strong enough to beat them, and it _definitely_ isn’t your fault I was stupid and full of myself and thought just because I had a few sneak previews, I was some kind of omniscient genius who didn’t have to think about what I was doing. I told youー you didn’t hear it,” he amends, “but I told you whatever was going to happen wasn’t your fault, and I still mean it. I knew what I was risking, and I knew what would happen if I fucked up.” A cracked laugh escapes from somewhere hollow inside him. “And I still did.”

Hermann lets him breath for another few beats, folding a few fingers over Newt’s hand covering his. “Newton,” he says slowly, “how much do you think I saw, when we Drifted this time?”

“This time?” Newt echoes, struggling for the memory until a flash of red bursts into the back of his mind, dissolving into swirls and particles of deep purple that leave the taste of Chamomile on his tongue. Light, he remembers; someone holding his hand with tight, shaking fingers as the world turned white and warm around him. “Weー we Drifted again?”

Hermann nods. “To split the Precursors,” he says, then lifts his uncovered hand and makes a motion with his fingers. “With the neural load of them shared between us, their power was diluted enough to become nullified.” He gives Newt a careful, but wry smile. “Of course, what you did in the control room certainly helped matters.”

Newt feels a lump rise up in his throat, and forces himself to swallow it. “Right. That. So…” he takes a deep breath, “what happens now?”

Hermann frowns. “What do you mean?”

He laughs weakly again. “I mean, I sure don’t have any spoilers, so: what’s the verdict? Life in prison? Electric chair? Orー I don’t think I still have my old grippy socks, but I can probablyー”

“Newton. _Newton,_ ” Hermann interrupts, stopping his breath from quickening. “What are you talking about?”

Newt’s forehead creases, sending a sharp little ache that makes him wince momentarily. “I mean how are they gonna ‘punish the Emissary’? I almost ended the world.”

Hermann blinks. “No you didn’t.”

This is an unexpected response. Newt feels his face go blank. “Uh. Yes I did.”

“No,” Hermann repeats, “the Precursors did. You, in fact, did everything you could to _save_ the world. You put yourself in incredible harm and danger not once but _twice_ to do so. Didー Newton, did you really think everything you’ve done wouldn’t matter?”

Newt’s heart begins to race even faster. “Iー I was kind of scared it would?”

“Yes, it _does_ ,” Hermann insists emphatically, leaning closer. “I saw what would have happened if you hadn’t overcome them in the control room, but because of you, it _didn’t_. Hundredsー even thousands of lives were saved when youー” his voice breaks slightly, “and then before, when you knew what they would do to you, and how long you would have to wait for anyone to notice, but you _still_ Drifted the first time. That is…” He clears his throat wetly. “Newton, you are the bravest man I have ever met, and unimaginably stupid, but most importantly _you are a hero_.”

Newt feels his face go scarlet. “Iー I just did what I needed to do.”

“You chose to,” Hermann says. “That day, you saved lives in Tokyo, and the Shatterdome, andー and you saved mine.” His eyes are shining, with tears once more but also something that makes Newt’s heart flutter. “None of us know how we can ever thank you.”

“I mean,” he says with an awkward shrug, glancing up at the bruises around Hermann’s throat that are just a bit lighter than he expected, “you lived in the other universe, too.”

Hermann, surprisingly, snorts and shakes his head. “Oh God. I was afraid this would all go to your head, but somehow you being modest is infinitely worse.” He fixes Newt with a pointed look. “Being strangled is still being strangled, _Newton_.”

“Okay,” he relents, pushing away the twisty feeling of nerves in his stomach to ask, “Then, why did youー you held my hand. You didn’tー you didn’t do that, in my universe. You didn’t hold Flick’s.” His cheeks burn even hotter. “What made it different?”

Hermann’s face flushes equally red. “Ah. Well. Er.” He ducks his head, finger absentmindedly running over Newt’s hand in the same way. “Iー I suppose you might have changed some other parts of this as well.”

Newt frowns. “I mean, I always assumed you were just gay and not into herー like, you dress an extra from _Tintin_ ー but what does that have to do with meー”

“ _Bleeding Christ_ ,” Hermann grinds out, and kisses him before Newt can say another word.

In all Newt’s admittedly twenty-two-ish years of dreaming about kissing Hermann Gottlieb, he’d developed a few expectations, but the feelingー the real, warm, _real_ feelingー of those thin, deceptively perfect lips on his, blows all of them from his mind like a hurricane. His head is still pounding, and both of their mouths are dry and clumsy with overeager movements, and Newt reaches his shaking hands up to cup Hermann’s gorgeous jaw and kiss him like the world isn’t ending.

* * *

_“Be happy—if you’re not even happy what’s so good about surviving? We’ll be alright. I suppose we just go on.”_  
_\- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_

Because it isn’t. It doesn’t. The facts of time are these:

Fourteen years ago, Newt Geiszler fell into another world that he knew better than anyone else, except for the part where he didn’t. The act (of falling) was pure accident, except for the part where it wasn’t. A man leans in. Another man, but the same man, climbs out. The man decides to save the world. Do you get the story yet? Let’s try another.

Ten years ago, Newt Geiszler stood in a damp, chilly lab guarding the last thin line of defense between desperation and certain doom, and was faced with no other choice but to Drift with a Kaiju brain, except for the part where he wasn’t. The Drift was the end result of a force of hand, except for the part where it wasn’t. A man sees the world is about to end, and only he can light the match. The same man knows what else is in danger of catching fire. The man steps into the flame, builds a wall around it, then douses himself with gasoline. Now, surely, you must understand.

One year ago, Newt Geiszler saw the man he loved choosing to comfort him while his own life slipped from his throat in stuttered gasps, and made a shocking discovery, except for the part where it had been true all along: he was a small part, among many other lives and people and threads weaving together, but this was still his story, and he had the power to shape it. So he did.

Two minutes ago, Newt Geiszler and his husband, Hermann Gottlieb, decided who should run out to the bánh mì place down the street to pick up dinner by flipping a coin. Newt reached into the coin jar they keep pushed to one side of the kitchen counter, labeled hastily with a pink dry-erase pen, “Tattoo Money/Tea Fund”, and pulled out a quarter. He glanced at Hermann, smiling from his place tucked comfortably against the arm of their blue corduroy couch, and raised an eyebrow. Hermann gave him a nod. He flipped the coin.

Tails.

_THE END_


End file.
